Conspiracy of Silence: Sixth Sense
by Nomad1
Summary: Severus Snape's sixth year at Hogwarts. Sometimes you have to follow your instincts...
1. Chapter One

** Conspiracy of Silence **

by Nomad   
Mar 2002

**Disclaimer: ** J.K. Rowling created and owns Hogwarts, Severus Snape, and almost everything else in this story - for which I will be forever jealous.   
**Author's Note**: The sequel to CoS: Fifth Columnist.

**Sixth Sense**

Platform nine and three-quarters grew suddenly quiet as Severus Snape stepped onto the platform. Eyes flicked from him to the four Gryffindor boys clustered at the other end.

Ignoring the weight of the students' collective gaze, Sev slid through the crowd and joined a different group. A moment later, the hum of conversation warily resumed.

"Severus," said Malfoy coolly, sharp grey eyes betraying no hint of whether Sev's presence filled him with distaste or left him unmoved.

"Lucius." Sev didn't bother to acknowledge the other boys' presence, but as always, he missed little.

In the upper end of their teenage years now, they weren't quite boys any longer. Colin Crabbe, never quite small and dainty, had achieved the rough size and proportions of a young gorilla. Nick Avery's too-pretty features had firmed into the face of a young god, neatly masking the darkness beneath. And Simon Lestrange... Simon had grown older, but his puffy features and deep green eyes still looked disturbingly childish. Childish not in the sense of sweet and innocent, but rather in the lack of comprehension of adult concepts like right and wrong or morality.

Beside them were two younger, but no less familiar faces: Graham Goyle and Alex Nott. In the year below, Nott and Goyle practically worshipped Malfoy, and had been drawn deeper into his confidence as time went on.

Sev, by contrast, had teetered dangerously on the edge of being pushed out. Malfoy's jealousy of his intelligence, coupled with resentment from when Sev had been made a Prefect and he was passed over, had resulted in a definite growing apart.

In a perfect world, growing apart from Lucius Malfoy would hardly be a tragedy, but Sev happened to have very good reasons for needing to be in with him. Malfoy was his only link to the Death Eaters, a highly dangerous organisation who had at least one agent on the Hogwarts staff. Sev, recognising that nobody else would have such an opportunity - or the skill to pull it off - had appointed himself counterspy, and worked from the very start to get as deeply rooted in the Death Eater organisation as his skills would allow.

It had taken a very risky venture indeed at the end of last year to make the Death Eaters believe he would do anything for them. By putting his own life in danger and making it all the Gryffindors' fault, he had made a very convincing case for his 'hatred' of the current order and all it represented.

Dumbledore, never slowest on the uptake, had got in on the act, deliberately being light on punishment to make Snape's resentment all the more justified. In return, he had set Sev the task of designing him a foolproof trap to find the traitor on the staff.

Sev had spent much of his holidays in contemplation, and as he and the other Slytherins rode the train to Hogwarts, he turned the ideas over in his head once again.

Whether Snape was hugely more intelligent than those around was perhaps a matter of opinion, but certainly where he differed from others was his ability to polish ideas to perfection. He had a great skill for reading people, and coupled with relentless logic it allowed him to play those surrounding him perfectly. Sev might act quickly, but never impulsively. Nothing he ever did was completely uncalculated.

The shift between impassiveness and howling anger he managed to portray might seem implausible, but people _wanted_ to believe it. It made them feel more comfortable to believe that his passions could rule him, like anybody else.

Sev had passions, in his own quiet way. But he kept them on the inside.

Anybody watching him on the train would have seen simply a young man, quieter than his rowdy companions, staring out of the window and seeming in a world of his own. They wouldn't have known that he was plotting deception, and never missing a word of the conversation around him as he did it.

The platform on the Hogwarts end was rowdier than in previous years. The Death Eaters had been lying low, and there had been no disasters other than Snape's brush with death - dismissed by most of the school as a schoolboy prank, just as he'd intended. When nothing went wrong for a while, people started to believe that the badness must have gone away.

People were stupid.

Sev tuned out the sorting song and the usual celebrations, but he paid more attention to Dumbledore's welcoming speech.

"As you all no doubt know," he was saying, "times have been somewhat... troubled, of late. However, even in these dark days, there is always room for hope and celebration. With that in mind, I have decided that this year we will hold a summer festival."

There were whoops and cheers from everybody but the professionally unimpressed Slytherins.

"What kind of a festival?" called James Potter over the general noise. Dumbledore smiled at him.

"Well, that would be up to you. We'll be asking for ideas from the students for the kind of celebration you'd want... _within reason_," he added, with a pointed look at the rowdy Gryffindor table. He smiled again, and clapped his hands. "We'll discuss this again later in the year, but for now, it's time for me to stop talking, so... eat, drink, and be merry!"

"For tomorrow, you die," Sev completed quietly. Beside him, Malfoy snickered.

* * *

Sev knew a summons from Dumbledore was coming, but the headmaster was too subtle to haul him in immediately. It was several weeks before Professor Malachite snagged him at the end of class and said "Ah, Severus. Professor Dumbledore asked if you'd go and see him at the end of today, if you can find the time."

Malfoy glowered suspiciously, and Avery said "Hey, Sev, what did you do this time?"

Sev made a point of rolling his eyes in a long-suffering manner. "No doubt I'm being blamed for something house Gryffindor did, yet again."

Beside him, Malachite's mouth compressed into a tight line. The Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher was fiercely proud of his ties to house Slytherin, and furious with the way his students were always tarred with the same brush. Considering the current crop of Slytherin bad apples, he was very much fighting a losing battle.

Sev made his way down to the concealed entrance to Dumbledore's office - it opened before he needed to announce his presence. He stepped inside, and made his way to where Dumbledore was waiting at his desk.

"Headmaster," he said with a nod.

"Severus." The headmaster smiled faintly. "Settling in well?"

It was hard to tell if he was being ironic or serious. Sev shrugged. "Well enough."

Dumbledore leaned towards him. "Have you given any thought to what we discussed last summer?"

"Of course," he said.

"And do you have a plan?"

"I do."

Instead of pressing him for details, Dumbledore said simply "What do you need?"

"Something they want," he replied.

"What?"

He shrugged slightly. "It really doesn't matter. They just have to want it."

Dumbledore smiled faintly. "I'm sure I'll be able to find something. We can't have a trap without bait, now can we?" He frowned slightly. "Bait that they won't get hold of, or bait that they will?"

"Better always to assume the worst, isn't it?" Sev pointed out.

The headmaster looked at him over his glasses. "Better for your plans, perhaps. Not so good for the way you think." Sev couldn't have given him any answer that would have satisfied, nor was he inclined to, so there was a brief silence. Dumbledore shuffled papers on his desk. "I'll speak to you again when I have something for you."

Sev nodded, and got up to leave. On his way, he hesitated, and then turned back. "Oh, and by the way. You're calling together the sixth years who are ex-Prefects to help organise the festival."

Dumbledore looked up at him for a moment, and then nodded. Sev left.

* * *

Malfoy cornered him when he got back to the dorms. "What was that about?" he demanded.

"Parties," Sev said, with just the right note of disdain.

Malfoy looked as sceptical as the idea of Sev Snape being involved in a party deserved. "You? Dumbledore wanted to talk to _you_ about parties?"

Sev looked mildly irritated. "This stupid summer festival. He wants last year's Prefects to help organise it."

Malfoy snorted darkly. "Yet again, I give thanks they passed me over," he said, rolling his eyes. Sev knew for a fact that wasn't true. As unimpressed as he acted, Malfoy had desperately wanted the Prefect honours for himself. It didn't matter to him that the position belonged to an order he detested - it represented power over others, and Lucius Malfoy considered power his birthright.

"Something else you might be interested in," Sev told him.

"Interested? In this ridiculous festival idea of theirs?" Malfoy said scathingly.

"Not the festival." He leaned in closer, though there was nobody else in the dorms to hear. "Dumbledore was talking about something... a package, from the Ministry of Magic. I don't know what it is, but it sounds like something important."

Malfoy nodded wisely. "Really? Interesting, Severus. Very interesting." He stood up. "I think perhaps I'll... despatch that little titbit through certain channels." He smiled mockingly at Snape, and left.

Malfoy enjoyed holding his superior knowledge over him - as if to say 'you may be smart, but _I_ know who the Death Eater is, and _you_ don't'. Sev was untroubled. Soon enough, that would be changing.

* * *

'Soon', perhaps, was not the same for Severus Snape as it might be for another boy his age. Whilst his classmates all thought in terms of the here and now, it never bothered Snape to look to the long term; after all, that was how he'd got into the spying game in the first place.

The unfortunate side effect of his cover-up about ex-Prefects helping with the festival was that they had to well, actually do it. Fortunately the houses were mostly arranging their own events of the festivities, so that meant minimal contact with his new 'deadly enemy' James Potter.

The festival was to be held at the end of the summer term, and involve the entire school. Dumbledore wanted nobody to be left out, leading to complaints that he was asking for trouble - which, of course, he was. The more chaotic the festival, the better the opportunity for the Death Eater to make a move.

With their new, more advanced lessons as they moved up from OWL to NEWT level, the sixth years were heavily involved in various projects for unveiling in the summer. Sev, naturally, had drawn OWL results as close to perfect as he chose to get away with - deliberately falling just a handful of points behind Potter to let the 'resentment' simmer a little more.

In the upper years, things were more flexible. Although the sixth form at Hogwarts was still more a school than a college, the students had a little more freedom, and were given more time off to study, although that was seldom what that time was used for.

The next part of Snape and Dumbledore's plan was called into play when the headmaster called a meeting of staff and festival-organisers. They all filed in to the meeting room in various states of enthusiasm. Sev kept a look of resigned boredom throughout the quibbling over various tasks and events, not a great stretch of his acting abilities.

"And now, on a more serious note," Dumbledore added as the Prefects were dismissed, "I have a few other tasks that need taking care of. Potter, Snape, if you'd like to wait behind for a moment?"

They both lingered, shooting wary glances at each other. Lily stayed behind as well, waiting for James.

"Come here, boys," said Dumbledore fondly. He addressed both them and the gathered staff. "As you are no doubt aware, messers Potter and Snape hold the distinction of some of the best test scores this school has seen in recent years."

Professors Vitae and Malachite both grinned triumphantly, happy to take credit for achievements that were more likely due to the students in question than the guidance they had received.

Dumbledore smiled at the two boys.

"It happens that I've been working with the Ministry of Magic over the summer. With the worries about safety that we've seen in recent year, they've been testing a number of new devices. However, as any good inventor knows, no device has been truly tried under adverse conditions until an agile young mind has been given the chance to take it apart and see how it works." There were a few acknowledging smirks from the teachers.

"James, I'd like you to take a look at a new device called a Pocket Sneakoscope. It's based on the kind of dishonesty detectors that the Ministry use, but in a small, portable form and available for the general public. They've tested it in their laboratories of course, but it needs some genuinely sneaky intentions to work properly... assuming, of course, you think you can find any students who might be trying to get away with something..."

James grinned, and then shot a pointed look at Snape. "I'm sure I can find one or two, Professor." Malachite scowled darkly at him.

"And what about me, Professor?" Snape spoke up.

"Ah, yes, Severus." For somebody who seemed so twinkly-eyed and honest, Dumbledore certainly did a masterful impression of having quite absent-mindedly forgotten the main purpose of this charade. "You, young Mr. Snape, are going to be road-testing a prototype of an extremely powerful device called a Foe-Glass."

"What's that?" asked James with a frown, obviously trying to decide whether or not to be jealous.

"The Foe-Glass, once it's fully operational, will be an invaluable aid to Aurors in the fight against evil. It allows the user to see the face of their enemies; the more sharply defined the focus, the more immediate the danger. It needs a great deal of fine-tuning yet, but once it has been perfected, finding the Death Eaters amongst our own will suddenly become a far, far easier task."

The murmur of interest that rippled through the staff was such that there was no way to tell which of them was exclaiming for a reason that had little to do with pleasure.

"That sounds... more interesting than mine," said James, not quite able to bury an edge of petulance.

"No doubt House Slytherin find it easier to test a device for finding enemies than most," spoke up Professor Vitae silkily. Beside her, Professor Malachite sneered.

Dumbledore clapped his hands together, pretending not to notice what was going on beside him. "I have the devices in my office, at present. They'll be moved to some place where they can be studied as soon as the arrangements for security are quite finished."

Sev didn't need to ask when that would be; after all, it was he himself who would be developing the security system. A system that he would be oh-so-helpfully instructing the Death Eaters in how to breach...


	2. Chapter Two

Sev had already sketched out in his mind precisely what he required for his plan; however, implementing it to his exacting standard took longer. In his best subject, Potions, instinct and a lot of general knowledge could nearly always bring him to the desired result, but the Arithmancy and Charms work needed for this was a far more complex procedure. A Potion could be 'almost right' - the wards for a piece of Arithmancy had to be perfectly accurate, or nothing would happen at all.

He borrowed from the Muggle idea of codes. The vast majority of wizards didn't have a logical bone in their body. Set a series of mystical challenges, and they might be overcome. Set a brainteaser, and you could pretty much guarantee that they'd still be sitting there stumped when the sun burned out.

With his ability to think himself out of the most convoluted of situations, Sev would have had no trouble devising a spell that nobody could break through. The trick, however, was in devising one that could be broken through in exactly the way he desired.

Indeed, the Christmas holidays had rolled up before he'd finished tinkering enough to so much as glance at the Foe-Glass. It was just as well, then, that he'd taken the time to familiarise himself with everything the Ministry had written about it, because when Malfoy returned from holidaying with his parents, he wanted to know everything.

"I spoke with Lord Voldemort," he said in a low voice, sitting down across from Snape in the Slytherin common room. Sev was amused by the way he endeavoured to make it sound as if the conversation had been on an entirely equal footing.

Lord Voldemort was the head of the Death Eaters. His name had begun to penetrate the public consciousness, although all but the most mighty wizards feared to whisper it - as if he might be some demonic figure summoned by the utterance.

Sev was in a position to suspect that this idea had been carefully cultivated. Voldemort was clever, dangerously so, and perhaps as adept at manipulating people as Snape himself. On the few occasions that Sev had been in his presence, he had been forced to play his deceptions with more skill than ever, skirting as close as possible to honesty to duck the risk of betraying himself.

The Ministry had no idea _where_ this shadowy figure was hiding himself, although Sev was convinced his hideout was in fact the magical academy Durmstrang. That knowledge would have availed the Ministry little even had he chosen to share it - since nobody actually knew where Durmstrang _was_.

On the occasions Sev had been summoned before Voldemort, he had been transported there by Portkey. He had no way to make contact with the Death Eaters, only be contacted, but Malfoy had his own channels of communication. A fact that he was never slow to lord over Snape.

"I reported your work with the Foe-Glass to our leaders." Actually, Sev was more than sure it had been the Death Eater on staff who had first done that, especially since he had made certain all the main suspects were in the room when it was announced. "It seems that they're... intrigued."

"I thought they might be." Sev smiled thinly. Dumbledore's choice of bait had been clever indeed. The Death Eater movement had grown strong through fear and intimidation; the risk of showing their faces too early was no doubt a troubling one.

"So what have you found out about it?" demanded Malfoy.

"As little as possible." Sev smiled at him. "After all, it would hardly be... sporting... to deprive the Ministry of the fun of working it out for themselves."

Malfoy smirked, but then turned serious. "We need to get at the glass, Severus. Our people need to know how it works to learn how to defeat it."

_'Our' people?_ Sev wondered just when Malfoy was likely to get a rude awakening to the fact that he was nothing more than the Death Eaters' errand boy. His charisma might allow him to rule the day in House Slytherin, but it would cut no ice with Lord Voldemort.

"I realise that. However, our masters would be less than happy if we tipped our hand in getting it." The Death Eaters had wasted no time in letting their young recruits know that mistakes would _not_ be tolerated. Malfoy had to listen to him, because if any of his underlings screwed up, it would fall on his head as well as theirs.

"So what do you suggest?" he asked sharply. He always had Sev 'suggest' things, rather than actually tell him what to do. Just because Snape was demonstrably smarter than he was no reason for him to admit it.

"The festival," he said simply. Malfoy wasn't on his mental level, but he was no blunt knife either, and ideas always went down better if he was given the opportunity to flesh them out himself.

"Yes," he said slowly. "Yes, I could see that... Dumbledore will be distracted, all the school will be outside, everything will be in chaos..." Sev was amused at the way he sketched out the reasoning, as if obviously Snape must have just thrown out the idea without considering any of the reasons why it was a good one.

"Yes," said Malfoy again. "The festival it is. Now all that remains is for you to bring us a suitable plan."

"I'm sure I'll be able manage that," said Sev dryly.

It was amazing how much more smoothly plotting went when you were running both sides of the battle simultaneously.

* * *

It was late February before his perfectionist instincts would allow him to cease work on his security system and actually take a look at the Foe-Glass.

Dumbledore had chosen the device with care; worthless bait would tip off the enemy, but by the same token it could be deadly to let anything too valuable slip into their hands.

The Foe-Glass was indeed at the cutting edge of the Ministry's detector technology; however, the one they had furnished Dumbledore with was several generations behind the ones they were _really_ working on, and had a few flaws that were already being ironed out in the later versions.

The Pocket Sneakoscope, by contrast, was a mere distraction. It might make an interesting gadget, but it certainly wouldn't catch any Death Eaters. As James and his friends had quickly discovered, the slightest little dubious thought would set it off. And in a school as large as Hogwarts, there were a lot of dubious thoughts.

Sev's thoughts, however, were fully focused on reeling in the suspects. His shields around the Foe-Glass were at last as complete as they were ever going to be. He had the headmaster individually call in the four teachers on his list, Malachite, Vitae, Fractalis and Ephemeria, and tell them each that he was giving them the access code 'in case of an emergency'.

Of course, all the access codes were genuine. That was the whole point. The Death Eater would probably test the code they were given, sneaking in but not actually touching anything. However, there wasn't an absolute guarantee that an honest teacher might not be tempted to do the same - and Severus Snape always wanted an absolute guarantee. So, instead of watching and waiting for somebody to sneak in, he remained deliberately oblivious. They would find out the identity of the Death Eater when they made a _real_ attempt to steal it; all things in good time.

Meanwhile, school life plodded on. The young cadre of Death Eaters were temporarily free of spying duties, and turned their attention to other pursuits. Colin Crabbe again turned to the possibility of a career in petty theft, and Simon Lestrange continued to severely disconcert anybody who met him with his detached gaze and equally detached personality. Even the teachers were beginning to notice it, although they never said anything. Presumably it was bad teaching practise to admit that you thought one of your pupils was quite possibly a psychopath in the making.

Nick Avery had a great many things on his mind, all of them female. Malfoy, by contrast, had 'laid claim' to Narcissa Salenica. Sev thought it a rather dubious honour, considering the fact that Malfoy thought of her as 'his girl' in the same way that he referred to 'his books' and 'his clothes'. Despite all the evidence that it was a thoroughly unsavoury relationship, the other Slytherin girls were screamingly jealous.

People were stupid.

Goyle and Nott had appointed themselves Malfoy's new bodyguards. Despite the fact that they were younger, they were both built like brick walls, and nobody was going to argue with them. They were the terror of the school's younger students, selecting victims almost randomly and playing around with spells that were just a little too nasty to be dismissed as youthful pranks.

As summer approached, the Quidditch teams battled it out in the pattern that was almost set in stone by now; Slytherin and Gryffindor put down all in their path to get together for a final, brutal head-to-head battle that always just narrowly went to Gryffindor. By now James Potter and Malfoy were both captains, and there was never a Gryffindor vs. Slytherin match without at least one nasty injury.

Malfoy continued to declare Quidditch "completely unimportant", a phrase he liked to use for anything he lost at, and complain about the anti-Slytherin bias. Even if it wasn't part of his cover, Sev would have had to have agreed it existed... however, it was also not unjustified.

Professor Malachite, the head of house Slytherin, was endlessly frustrated by the way his house was always put down - more often than not, by the actions of its own students. He couldn't understand how Dumbledore had refused to punish James and Sirius for nearly killing Snape the previous year.

Malachite was taking points off Gryffindors left right and centre, at the slightest provocation. His arch enemy, Gryffindor's head Ellida Vitae, countered that by doing exactly the same to house Slytherin. She never got Malfoy, however; he was always far too good at playing the innocent.

For all their mutual hatred, Malachite and Vitae were never far apart; Snape suspected they followed each other around hoping for a chance to catch the other in the act of favouring their own house. The perpetually nervous Professor Fractalis would turn pale and dash away whenever he saw the arguing duo headed his way. Unusually, instead of locking himself away with his books, he was spending an awful lot of time with the Potions professor, Janeida Ephemeria.

Snape took this all in, waiting and watching. Then, one weekend at the beginning of summer, the Dark Mark emblazoned on his arm suddenly grew black and burned with pain. He wasn't particularly surprised; he'd been expecting it since Christmas.

There was no message sent to him, but by now he knew what to do. He rose out of bed in the middle of the night, and padded out into the Forbidden Forest.

Last time he'd been out in the forest on one of these trips, he'd noticed a set of curious marks on the ground. Tonight, he noticed them again, and freshly made; a series of ruts in the ground, as if made by a very wide wheel - except there was no way any wheeled contraption could navigate through the twisting pathways of the Forbidden Forest.

Sev's logical mind had an overwhelming compulsion to make connections and build patterns. He'd seen these marks before when he'd been going out to find the Death Eaters' concealed Portkey; what was the link?

However, that was a puzzle for a later time, for the meeting that was coming up would need his full concentration - a rare condition indeed. There were very few things Sev couldn't do with most of his mind a million miles away - verbally fencing with Voldemort was one of them.

The Ministry of Magic liked to reassure people that the Death Eaters were vicious but basically arrogant and stupid. That might hold true for the vast majority of their members, but in some cases it didn't; Voldemort, like Malfoy, was arrogant and very intelligent.

Where Malfoy's intelligence equated to a kind of charismatic cunning, however, Voldemort thought in a very similar way to Severus Snape. That, in Sev's mind, made him more dangerous than the rest of his followers put together.

Sooner or later, he knew, the conflict with the Death Eaters would hinge on getting close to Voldemort. Resentful bigots with a taste for glory were not rare, but get them alone, and they were generally spineless. It was only when they were brought together that they became powerful - and it was Voldemort who brought them together.

No doubt James Potter, had he been in Snape's situation - something which his very noble nature made impossible - would have conceived some wild plan to heroically take on Voldemort himself. Sev knew he was light-years ahead of his fellow students, but he was still seventeen years old. If Voldemort had a brain as quick as his own, and no compunction about gathering knowledge from the nastiest places imaginable, who knew how powerful he might be?

James was a Quidditch Seeker at heart; charge in, zip ahead of everybody else to save the day, and let the whole world know you were doing it. Sev, though he never played the game for lack of an opponent, thought like a chess player. You couldn't win a game of chess by charging the king with your most valuable piece.

And he knew himself to be one of their side's most valuable pieces. Nobody else could infiltrate the Death Eaters so fully, because nobody else had the presence of mind to be so deceptive from the very start. Not many people had the ability to start spinning a web of lies and secrecy at the age of eleven.

If he tried to make a move against Voldemort, he would not only fail, but remove himself from the game, costing their side dearly. 'Blaze of glory' might have a nice heroic ring to it, but it was no way to win.

And Severus Snape always played to win. He stepped up to the Portkey in the dark, and took hold of it.


	3. Chapter Three

The interior of the Dark Lord's tower was almost familiar to him by now. Voldemort always kept it dimmed, but as a tactic to disconcert him it was fairly ineffective. A habitual insomniac, Sev was no stranger to wandering the corridors of Hogwarts in darkness.

"Lord Voldemort," he said, with a respectful nod.

"Ah, Snape. We thought perhaps you weren't coming." The Death Eater leader was sitting in a chair in the corner, legs propped casually up on a small table.

"I followed the same procedure as before," Sev said, but not over-defensively. Voldemort wasn't attacking him, only studying his reactions - much as he would be doing, if the situation had been reversed.

It was strange, but in front of the one person he most needed to fool, he could allow the most of his true personality to shine through. At the school he guarded his intelligence, put on the emotions that he knew would be expected of him. With Voldemort, he could let all that drop and show the cool calculation underneath.

"And what if I had required your presence immediately?" asked the Death Eater leader, in the same deceptively light and airy tone.

Sev looked pointedly at where the Dark Mark was no doubt still burning black under his sleeve. "If you had required my presence immediately, I've no doubt I would have known about it."

Voldemort laughed, not a cackle or a crazy giggle, but a low, earthy sound of amusement.

"Indeed! Now," he leaned forward, resting his chin on his fist, "tell me of this Foe-Glass."

"It's a Ministry device; I assume you've heard what it's designed to do?"

"Yes." Voldemort smiled slightly. "But what does it _actually_ do?" It was the same question Sev himself would have asked.

"Oh, it does its job... to a certain extent. It's hard for me to study it fully, without a better class of enemy."

"You think you don't have enemies?"

"I think they don't know they're my enemies," Sev countered. The older man nodded in acknowledgement, but immediately challenged him again.

"You've had months to study the device; are these all the conclusions you've drawn?"

"The device is not all I've been studying."

Voldemort smiled again. Sev was passing the tests he was setting up. "Tell me."

"The shield around it is an exceptionally well-designed system." He could say that with full certainty, having developed it himself. "It can't be bypassed or removed by force, but that doesn't mean it can't be overcome."

"How?"

"The shield-spell has an element that means that even if you use the correct code, it registers who passed through it-"

"So if it the device goes missing, they'll know who took it." Voldemort nodded. "This can be circumvented?"

"I've figured out how to shut that element down for a short time," he agreed. To be precise, he'd invented the system in such a way that it was possible to do that. "However, you'd still need the code to get in."

"We have the code."

It was just as well Snape didn't have Malfoy's uncontrollable need to smirk when his plan worked perfectly.

This had been the most dangerous edge of the bluff; if Voldemort had asked him to give over his own code, subtly different from the ones Dumbledore had handed out to his staff, all would had been lost. However, Sev had staked everything on his ability to read personalities - and been right. Voldemort responded to Sev's intelligence by making himself seem to be one step ahead all the time - he wanted to make it clear that everything Snape was reporting, he already knew.

The first phase had gone perfectly - but this was no time to relax.

"You tell us that the best time to make a move would be this 'summer festival'; why?"

"The list of reasons Malfoy gave you, cloaked as his own reasoning."

Voldemort laughed. "Quite! And was it his own?"

"Why yes, of course. Once I had told him the conclusion, he was quick to figure out how to realise it."

Voldemort laughed again, but his face abruptly hardened. "Why are you here, Snape?"

This time, Sev knew, the answer wasn't 'because you summoned me'. "I go wherever advantages me most," he said carefully.

"Of course. And what happens when our little organisation ceases to be... the most advantageous place for you to be?"

It was a very fine line indeed between truth, lies, and saying the wrong thing. Sev chose to brazen it out with a flicker of Slytherin arrogance. "Perhaps it's best that you see that doesn't happen."

"Perhaps it is," said the Death Eater leader, with an unreadable smile. "I notice you don't leap to assure me your loyalty is without question," he added lazily.

"Nobody's loyalty without question."

Voldemort nodded slowly, then broke into soft chuckle. "I like you, Snape. You think like me."

"I know."

"Very well." He stood up, suddenly. "We will bow to your superior judgement." There was just enough of an edge of humour in his voice to hint that he didn't quite mean it but he wasn't mocking Sev either. "My Death Eater will retrieve the glass on the day you suggested. And you, I trust, will make sure this can happen."

"I will." That was no lie. He fully intended to let the Death Eater agent get away with it - he just planned to find out who they were while they were doing it.

Voldemort nodded and abruptly dismissed him. "You may go."

Sev went.

* * *

Malfoy was lying awake when Sev returned to their dorm. "You've been out," he observed neutrally.

"I was summoned." Sev slid back his sleeve to display the Dark Mark, slowly beginning to fade from black to its original red.

"Summoned for what?" Malfoy demanded. Being the only one in the know might be one of his greatest pleasures, but he didn't much like being on the other side of it.

"They wanted to interrogate me about the Foe-Glass."

"They've had our reports." By which Malfoy meant _his_ reports. He was obviously not happy with the idea of Sev's word being taken over his own. Sev trod carefully.

"Our lord likes to hear these things for himself."

"And?"

"He liked your idea of staging the raid at the festival. He commanded me to weaken the magical shields for him." Deliberately cosying up to Malfoy would be far too obvious, but a few carefully chosen words could emphasise Snape's 'subordinate' position. If Malfoy chose to take it that way - which, of course, he did.

"And what are we to do?" asked Malfoy sharply.

"He didn't entrust me with your orders." Again, he subtly pointed out Malfoy's more trusted position. "But I should imagine a few little... distractions couldn't hurt."

Malfoy grinned slowly. The thought of magical nastiness always put him in a better mood. "Hmm, yes. I suppose I could... try to think of some suitable targets."

"Somebody heavily involved in the festivities, perhaps?" suggested Sev with a raised eyebrow. Malfoy smiled back. They were both well aware that James Potter had managed to wriggle his way into being involved with just about every event on the programme.

"Yes..." said Malfoy slowly. "We'll just have to see what we can do to improve the entertainments. After all," he smirked, "we can't let it be said that house Slytherin didn't get into the spirit of things."

* * *

As the summer rolled on, the entire school was overtaken by a buzz of excitement over the upcoming festival. There was to be a mini-Quidditch tournament, three matches in quick succession, and a host of unofficial betting circles had sprung up. The duelling club was to put on an exhibition - theoretically, it would be set up involve no actual injuries, but that wasn't likely to last very long. There were bets on that too, including on whether Potter and Malfoy would get the chance to go head to head, or if the teachers would be smart enough to put a stop to that before it happened.

Professor Alomanicia would be reading fortunes, and Hagrid was beside himself over the weird and wonderful creatures that were going to be on display. The seventh year Muggle Studies class were putting on a Muggle play, albeit with a few magical twists.

Rumours abounded that Professors Malachite and Vitae would be taking part in the duelling themselves, sparking a rash of inter-house scuffles over who would be the winner. Neither of them would confirm or deny the rumour, leading to even more speculation.

The hum of excitement infected all the lessons. Sev suspected that even as Dumbledore had set this festival up for a purpose, he had also wanted it to be exactly what it seemed - a way brighten up the year for students and staff alike. The mutterings of dark events far and near had all but died out in favour of more enjoyable speculation.

The end of year exams came and went; half the students failed because they were unable to concentrate, but the teachers didn't even seem to mind. They had been afforded even more of a glimpse of the troubled times than their students, and were just as eager for the chance to escape for a day.

Dumbledore summoned the eight ex-Prefects to him a few days before the big event.

"First of all, may I congratulate you all on your hard work in making this day the great success it is sure to be. This project stands as a tribute to how much we can achieve when we all pull together."

Sev was less impressed by the flowery praise than he was by Dumbledore's ability to talk of cooperation with a straight face. In all the meetings they had attended, this one no exception, the Gryffindor and Slytherin delegations had glared each other into oblivion.

Lily, of course, knew that Sev's hostility was only an act - but she could act too, and her dislike of Narcissa certainly wasn't feigned. Narcissa Salenica treated all her inferiors - which, in her mind, worked out to everybody - with the kind of icy disdain reserved for something you'd stepped in. That definitely rubbed Lily up the wrong way; it seemed to grate with her even more than Malfoy's outright cruelty. Sev had heard her say that Narcissa reminded her entirely too much of her big sister.

Narcissa and Malfoy were certainly a match made in a special kind of hell. Sev felt a vague sense of pity for their potential offspring - any child those two produced didn't have much of a chance of turning out with anything that passed for a normal personality.

Not that he himself could ever be accused of that, but at least he wasn't actively homicidal. His logic might make him unemotional in many regards, but it stripped away the bad as much as it did the good. Sev wasn't entirely immune to human emotion, he just knew better than to be guided by it - something a hothead like James Potter could never understand.

Lily was as bad. She had been the first to know the true extent of his mission, and understood the stakes involved - but she seemed unable to accept his logical weighing up of pros and cons as a way to reach decisions. Hers was a value system of doing 'the right thing' even when 'the right thing' would kill you and everyone you wanted to help, and something a little morally questionable would save you all with minimal cost.

Sev, naturally, found it rather hard to see the logic in that.

Lily was smart enough not to interfere in what he did, but she seemed to have appointed herself his part-time external conscience. And, irritatingly, she was perceptive enough to guess when there was something in the air.

Now, for instance, she kept shooting him suspicious glances across the room. He kept his face as impassive as came naturally, but she knew that proved nothing. As Dumbledore talked, she mouthed 'what?' at him. He gave her a look that he knew she would be able to translate as 'I can't believe you're stupid enough to try and communicate with me in a room full of people'.

She responded by sticking her tongue out. He fixed a lazily indifferent look into place, and turned back to Dumbledore. No doubt Lily would be sticking to him like glue on the night of the festival. Well, he could always distract her with Malfoy's torment of James if he really needed to get rid of her.

Professor Dumbledore was wrapping up his big motivational speech. "And finally, I need a volunteer-" James's hand was already up. Dumbledore smiled fondly at him. "Somebody who's a _little_ less overinvolved, I think," he added kindly.

James looked good-naturedly disappointed. It had become almost a running joke that the festival was going to be pretty much the James Potter show, as he scurried from Quidditch to duelling to the play to a few dozen other activities. The Slytherins, of course, had sniffed and called this yet more proof of the way the whole system was prejudiced in favour of Gryffindors. At exactly the same time as they stated loudly how pathetic it all was and none of them would _want_ to be involved.

Dumbledore's eyes swept around the semi-circle of sixth years and fell - purely by 'chance', of course - on Snape. "Ah, Severus. You're not too busy on the day of the festival, are you?"

"No, Professor." James snickered into his hands.

"Who'd want him?" he said in a stage whisper.

Dumbledore was an expert at not noticing such things. "If you don't mind, Severus, I'd like you to act as a liaison between the members of staff; make sure everything keeps running smoothly."

"Yes, Professor," he nodded. The headmaster had rather neatly handed him a licence to lurk around the staff without engendering suspicion.

However, before he was home free, Lily had a card to play. She pulled a vaguely disappointed face. "I could have done _that_," she said to James, in a stage whisper of her own. Dumbledore proved mysteriously able to hear this one when he hadn't picked the other.

"Then so you shall. You don't mind a little company, do you, Severus?"

The assembled sixth years choked in disbelief, and James Potter made a sound of disgust. "Aw, Lily, _now_ look what you've done!"

Lily just shrugged. "Ah, don't worry about it." She leaned closer to James. "He gives me any trouble, I'll just push him in the lake."

"Don't do that, you'll poison the monsters." James glared across at Snape. Sev sneered right back. Now he was going to have the fun of executing his flawless plan with snide commentary from Lily every step of the way. Strangely enough, the prospect wasn't all that distressing.


	4. Chapter Four

"Pick your feet up, greaseball, what've you been doing, drinking Torpor-Tonic?"

"Careful acting so friendly there, you'll blow our cover," said Sev sardonically. Lily laughed and elbowed him in the ribs.

"Can you move it, _please_? I don't want to miss the Quidditch."

"You don't want to miss your boyfriend showing off."

She gave him a look.

"I notice the sudden disappearance of the 'he's not my boyfriend' defence," he added.

"Watch it, you."

"The only thing to watch around here is your laughable insistence on bolting the barn door after the horse is not just gone but launching full page advertisements in the _Daily Prophet_ to tell everyone where it's been."

"Okay, that's either a mixed metaphor you got there or a very talented horse."

"It can't be both?"

Lily arched her eyebrows at him. "Tell me, have you ever considered a brief spell in St. Mungos?"

"Frequently, but how would I get them to take you away?"

They both fell silent and deliberately glared at each other as a third year boy scurried past on his way to festivities. As soon as he was gone, Lily started to giggle. Snape affected a look of mild disdain.

"You're really not cut out for a life of espionage, you know that?"

"Why would I be?" she shrugged. "I'm seventeen!"

"So am I," he shrugged back.

"No you're not, you're forty-five. You're a forty-five-year-old who's made himself some potion to look like a kid and infiltrated the school."

"Yes, because if I'd invented the Elixir of Youth I'd much rather be spending quality time with Malfoy and his friends than marketing it and raking in the millions."

"Well, why _are_ you spending quality time with Malfoy?" Sev shot her an exasperated look.

"You know why."

"No," she corrected, "I know _what_ you're doing, and _how_ you're trying to do it. I still don't really understand why."

"Preserving the future of wizardry isn't enough?"

This time it was Lily who gave him the look. "For me, maybe; not for you."

"I'm the most suitable person for the job."

"And that's, like, the whole reason you chose to do it?"

"It's only logical."

She pulled a face. "You are _sooo_ Spock."

"I'm what?"

"It's a Muggle thing. And I'm not telling you what it means."

"I don't care."

"You don't care about anything."

"And yet you never take the hint."

"Well, shut up, 'cause you're stuck with me." She stopped walking. "What've we got to do now, again?"

"We have to check in with Professor Alomancia." Sev rolled his eyes. "Can't you remember the simplest little thing?" He was arguing largely for the sake of it, but it was actually an honest question. He found it genuinely difficult to understand why other people's minds and memories didn't work the way his own did.

"I have a _great_ memory! I'm just not... freakishly freakish like you."

"Thank you." They skirted the big crowd at the Quidditch pitch to go down to the tent where the Divination professor was setting up.

"Ah! Lily, Severus." She beamed at the pair of them. Unlike most of the staff they'd already seen that morning, she didn't look surprised that they hadn't yet torn each other's throats out. In common with most future-gazing wizards and witches, Professor Alomancia was largely oblivious to what was going on in the world of the present.

"Everything set up, Professor?" asked Lily brightly. They had adopted an unofficial attack plan of Lily being chirpy and friendly, and Sev looking equal parts disgusted and bored - poses neither one of them found particularly taxing.

"Oh, yes indeed, yes indeed." She looked up at the sky, although Sev couldn't see that there was much to be read from it when it was blue and cloudless. "It surely is a most auspicious day for the revelation of secrets." Sev supposed that could be taken as a sign for his mission, but didn't take it particularly to heart; Professor Alomancia might indeed have a genuine talent, but it was more than buried in a sea of meaningless blather.

"Severus!" She turned to him. "Would you like to know your destiny?"

"I rather think not," he said dryly. There was nothing she could tell him that couldn't be read more clearly by his own perceptiveness.

The teacher shrugged, unoffended, and turned to Lily. "Lily? How about you? Would you care to know what the tides of time have in store for you?"

"Um..." Lily glanced towards the Quidditch team. "I think the match is about to start-"

"And you wouldn't want to miss a second of your boyfriend in flight, now would you?" jabbed Snape.

"Ah, yes. Young James," said the teacher, with a faint smile. "The astral tides strongly favour the two of you, you know," she said in confidential tones.

Lily looked as if she couldn't decide whether to scowl or be faintly pleased. She settled for staring down Sev's smirk and quickly extending a hand to the professor. "Go ahead, do a reading. I'm not in any hurry."

"Excellent." Apparently clueless as to the undercurrents behind the simple exchange, the Divination teacher took Lily's hand and examined it closely. "Ah yes, strong lines, strong lines. I see much health, love and happiness in your future, and-"

Abruptly she cut off speaking and her whole body went slack. Sev stopped rolling his eyes and watched her more closely. He'd seen her do this once before; the prelude to giving a true-spoken prophecy. The bits and pieces of lore she tagged together at other times might be close to worthless, but the words she spoke in this near trance-state _would_ come true.

Sev focused his attention on her intently - but not so intently that he didn't have time to process the thought that her _last_ true prophecy had also been delivered to Lily.

Professor Alomancia began to speak, in a cold, sharp voice that wasn't her own. "_The hidden snake shall fight the lion. The wolf will carry the fawn. Dog shall be rat and rat shall be snake, and death given freely is the greatest gift. The mighty will fall, the weak will rise, and the dark is brought down by a child._"

She snapped out of it abruptly, and gave Lily a vaguely bemused smile. "Are you quite okay there, dear? The reading's finished."

Lily shook her head and pulled away. "Oh yeah, I'm sorry, I guess I zoned out for a minute. Thinking about the future, I guess. Thanks, Professor." She turned to Sev. "Come on, Snape. We've got work to do."

"Did you hear that?" she asked, as soon as they were out of earshot.

"No, I've mysteriously gone selectively deaf."

"Oh, give it a rest, would you?" Lily frowned, biting her lower lip. "That's the second time she's done that to me! What d'you think it means?"

"Anything. Nothing." Sev shrugged. "It's prophecy. It's all very enlightening... after the fact."

"No - let me think a minute." Lily perched on the low wall beside them, Quidditch match abruptly forgotten. "The hidden snake will fight the lion... d'you think that's about you and James, last year?"

Sev shrugged again. "I wouldn't have called it much of a fight, but who can tell with prophecy?"

"The wolf will carry the fawn... That's gotta be Remus, natch, but what's a fawn got to do with anything?" Sev had never in as many words stated to Lily that he knew Lupin's secret, but she just assumed he did anyway. Lily knew full well he seldom missed such things.

"Then there was a load of crap about dogs and rats that I didn't get at all... and death as a gift - which I guess means somebody dying for their cause." She looked at him. "No offence, but that doesn't really sound like you."

"It doesn't," agreed Sev neutrally. Heroic sacrifices really weren't his _raison d'être_.

"...and the dark brought down by a child - that could be you, though."

"As you've already pointed out, I'm really not much of a child, either."

Lily nodded, and hugged her knees, looking frustrated. "Dammit, I hate this! Why tell me anything at all, if it's not gonna make the slightest bit of sense?"

"It's prophecy," he reminded her dryly. "That's what it's _for_."

Lily refused to be beaten. "She gave me another one, in the... second year? I never got that, either. I can't even remember it now."

"Choose wisely and well, for your doom will come too quickly. Love will not save you, but that which is most precious will survive. Beware; you think you see him, but the colours he wears are not his, and the face you know now is not the true one. He will betray you." Sev reeled it all off in a flat monotone.

"Oh, and where were you when I was taking my History of Magic OWL?" she demanded.

"Sitting in the back, desperately looking for any question where I could believably drop a few marks."

"Yeah, well. Anyway... I don't know what that one was all about, either. I thought it was about you, first off. But now I don't think so."

"You don't think I'm likely to betray you?" he asked, eyebrows raised.

"I think if you were going to betray me, you'd totally tell me you were doing it and really not care what I thought."

"Pretty much," Sev agreed amiably.

Lily frowned for a long moment, and then just shook her head and giggled. "So, according to Professor out-of-her-tree Alomancia, I'm either gonna have health, love and happiness, or death, pain and betrayal in my future. Place your bets now, please."

"Married to James Potter, you'd probably get both."

Lily pulled a disbelieving face and punched him in the shoulder, hard. "_Married_?"

"Oh, as if you're not going to," he taunted her. "You could marry him tomorrow, if your parents said you could."

"Oh, like they _would_!"

Sev smirked triumphantly. "Oh, but you would if they'd let you?"

She pummelled him again, and he put up his arms to fend her off. Just then, Professor Vitae came charging up. "What's going on here?" she demanded.

Sev quickly twisted amusement into sullen contempt. "She _hit_ me."

"He started it!"

The Charms Professor glared at them, or rather glared at Snape and pretended it encompassed Lily too. "Stop it, both of you. Don't you have places to be?"

"Yes, Professor," agreed Lily quickly.

"Whatever," said Snape, looking disinterested.

Professor Vitae shook her head and marched off in the direction of the Hogwarts building - and then abruptly turned, and shouted back "And ten points off Slytherin!"

"Okay, that was completely your fault," Sev told Lily when she'd gone.

"Hey, it's your stupid cover story." She looked up to where a few small shapes were already zooming about the skyline. "Hey, come on! The Quidditch's already started!"

"I can barely contain my excitement," said Snape dryly, trailing along behind her.

* * *

Sev slipped away from Lily to sit with his fellow Slytherins for the Quidditch. They all commiserated with him over the indignity of having to drag a mudblood around after him.

"She's an annoyance - nothing more," he shrugged boredly. "Like the buzzing of a fly."

"Flies only buzz until you pull their wings off," observed Simon mildly. The others laughed, although perhaps a little uneasily. Even junior Death Eaters weren't totally sure how to take somebody like Simon Lestrange.

Malfoy was of course Quidditch captain and team Seeker, and Avery was a Chaser. Colin and his younger friend Graham Goyle were both Beaters, smacking the Bludgers with such enthusiasm that Sev suspected they were picturing them to be their opponents' heads.

The line-up of the Gryffindor team had changed since James Potter was first made their Seeker. Once it had been a weak team with him their only big gun; now he'd built it up into powerhouse. In a fairly played match, no other house could stand against them. Of course, Gryffindor vs. Slytherin was rarely a fairly played match.

The staff had been sensible enough to start the mini tournament with Hufflepuff vs. Gryffindor, and then Ravenclaw vs. Slytherin. It stopped the final from being a foregone conclusion, although the other two houses got hammered in the playoffs. Then came the main event.

"Wish me luck," said Malfoy dryly as he got up to take his place after the brief break. The others all laughed. 'Luck' was the last thing the Slytherin team were going to be relying on.

It started off small... and got nasty very quickly. A few deliberately aimed Bludgers became pushing, shoving and grabbing, physical fouls became magical ones, curses started flying... There was a whistle blowing every couple of seconds, or so it seemed, but nobody was paying the slightest bit of attention.

Actual possession of the balls took second place to smashing your opponents into little pieces. The Slytherins had come packing ammunition, but the Gryffindors were expecting trouble and had a few spells of their own up their sleeves.

Play had to be stopped three times for the young nurse Poppy Pomfrey to run on and shift people back into their original shapes. Halfway through, after a particularly lucky goal, Gryffindor Chaser Michael Bell got rammed by Crabbe and Goyle and had to be taken off. He was replaced by the substitute... Lily.

The point when there was a girl and mudblood on the pitch was when it got _really_ nasty. It was impossible to keep track of all the fouls without Omnioculars, because there were always three or four going on at the same time.

Lily, however, sailed through it beautifully - largely because James left off the aerial acrobatics to appoint himself personal bodyguard. Nobody had the chance to get near her, and she even sunk a couple of Quaffles. Malfoy was _not_ going to be a happy camper.

The pattern was abruptly shattered as James peeled away and started spiralling upwards. Malfoy twigged immediately and zoomed after him, but he just didn't have the acceleration to catch up. Potter had the Golden Snitch, and Gryffindor the match.

As the cheers of the other three houses drowned out Slytherin's groans, Sev got to his feet. High above, Malfoy gave him a subtle nod. A moment later, the whole crowd was crying out in shock and - depending on house allegiance - either glee or dismay at the storm of coordinated curses surging towards James Potter.

Nobody was watching Snape as he slipped away back towards the school.


	5. Chapter Five

Sev padded through the corridors of Hogwarts. There was no need for concealment magics - the entire castle was deserted. Everybody was outside, whether they were part of the festivities or merely watching them.

Sev had spent enough time sequestered up in this little tower room that even had he not had half the memory he did, the route would have been permanently ingrained. He twisted the arm of the statue, slipped through the gap it stepped aside from, and ascended the stairs.

He smiled when he came to the door at the top. He and Dumbledore had played the most brazen bluff imaginable. He had spent months up here with the Foe-Glass, designing a magical lock for this door that would perfectly suit his needs. And until he'd completed his work, there had _been_ no lock on the door. The Death Eater could have sauntered in at any time and taken the Foe-Glass, without anything to stop them or mark their passage.

But Sev had known they wouldn't. The hidden Death Eater had proved to be incredibly cautious; so cautious that they would never presume to test the glass's defences until they knew exactly what those defences were.

It had taken much of his ingenuity to work out a suitable interface for the lock. It hadn't bothered him to fiddle around with the raw Arithmancy of it, applying a little power here and a little there to get the right balance. But none of the staff, except perhaps for Fractalis, would be able to remember a code built of such equations. Other people's memories, he was aware, seemed to require something more tangible to latch onto.

So, largely for his own amusement, he had made the lock into a kind of little solar system. A collection of little stars and moons and planets hung in space, and their relative positions made up the code. It would be easy to replicate a given arrangement, but literally impossible to try and cycle through all the different combinations to find one that worked. Had he been the kind to share his ability to make puns with anyone, he would probably have named it the 'Universal Lock'.

In addition to simply permitting or refusing entry, the lock had another handy little hidden trick. Sev, never leaving anything to chance, drew his wand to test its operation one more time.

"_Recyclius_!"

Immediately, the little stars and planets began to 'orbit', moving around in the loops he had restricted them to. After a moment, they all stopped moving. With a click, the door popped open.

Satisfied, Snape peered briefly inside, and shut the door again. He pointed his wand at the 'sun' in the centre of the arrangement, and said "_Randomius_!" The planets slid around their orbits and came to random stops. He leaned his weight against the door to test it, and then turned and descended the stairs.

So far as the Death Eaters were concerned, what he had just done up here was switch off a spell to identify the people who passed through the lock. In fact he hadn't, because he'd already designed it so that that spell was there if anyone checked for it, but never activated.

There was no way to detect identity that was completely foolproof. These days, most Ministry-approved security systems had devised ways of seeing through Polyjuice Potion, but there were plenty more devious methods available to a talented trickster - and the Death Eater agent would certainly be that. Cautious or not, it took an incredible amount of skill to leave no clues that either Snape or Dumbledore could pick up.

Lily was waiting for him when he emerged from the buildings. "Where have you been?" she asked, eyebrows raised in curiosity.

"Bathroom break?" he said guilelessly. She snorted.

"Yeah, right." The two of them wandered away towards the edges of the Forbidden Forest, where they would be out of view.

"What's happening, Sev?" Lily asked him, playfulness dropped as reached the shelter of the trees.

"Aside from the festival?"

"Aside from that, yes."

Snape shrugged, and looked at her. "What do you think's happening?" he asked.

She didn't disappoint him. "You're setting a trap to catch the spy."

"_Find_ the spy," he corrected. She shrugged and frowned.

"Same difference, surely?"

He shook his head. "I want to know who the spy is, not blow their cover."

"Why?" Then she answered her own question. "Because they'll send another. And you're better off with a spy you know about than one you don't."

"Do I need to be here at all?" he asked sardonically. She rolled her eyes at him.

"Okay. So you'll find out the identity of the spy. And what are you planning to do with it once you've got it?"

"Remember it?" he suggested.

She glared. "Is that what I meant?"

"I'm a creature of logic. You can't expect me to guess what's going on inside your head."

"You're a creature, all right. I _meant_, who are you going to tell?" She folded her arms. "'Cause that was the point, wasn't it? I mean, at some stage in this whole 'I'm a master spy for the side of light' game, you're actually gonna tell the side of light you're spying for them, right?"

Sev smiled internally. As it happened, he was well ahead of her right here. "And who would you suggest I go to?" he asked neutrally.

"Dumbledore," she said, without hesitation.

"The logical choice," he agreed.

"Exactly!" she seized on that. "Logic! That thing that you're so fond of. So if that's the logical thing to do, why don't you do it?"

"Because I've already done it," he said. And then smirked at the way her jaw dropped.

Lily got her facial expressions under control, after a moment. "You've already been to Dumbledore?"

"We spoke last year." And actually, Dumbledore had come to him, but that didn't really matter. Sev had been planning on pulling him into the loop sooner or later - probably, he had to admit to himself, much later. He knew that his mission would be useless if he never reported to everybody, but he'd wanted to delay as long as possible having to bring somebody else in. While he worked alone, he was completely untouchable. Introduce a contact, no matter how trustworthy, and everything became a whole lot less certain.

"And he... knows about your little plan?"

"Actually, it's _our_ little plan," Snape corrected.

Lily blinked at him for a moment, then pulled away. "Wow," she said, apparently to the nearest tree or possibly to the world in general. She looked back at him. "Dumbledore knows what you're doing? He... what did he say?"

"That he wants me to keep doing it."

Her eyebrows shot up. "Really?"

Sev half shrugged. "Basically. I seem to remember there was something in there about trust, foolishness, and people needing illusions, but I tuned that bit out."

"Of course you did," Lily agreed wryly. "Why listen to the bit that's telling you how to be a human being?"

He shrugged again. "I seem to do just fine without it."

"Yes, but fine by whose standards?"

"By mine. Who else matters?"

"See, this right here is at the heart of the 'human being' thing. You need to work on that."

"I don't think I do," he said lightly. In the brief lull in the conversation he was suddenly aware of the sound of soft footfalls on the forest floor.

"Someone's coming," said Lily.

"Ten out of ten for observation. Not to mention obvious remarks," Sev told her quietly. There was no point trying to run off - they waited warily for the approaching figure to emerge from the trees.

It was Professor Malachite. He came to an abrupt stop when he saw the two of them, looking confused.

"What's going on here? Severus?"

It was Lily who answered him. "Snape's being an idiot, that's what's going on," she glowered.

"Me? It was you and your stupid boyfriend who-"

The instant fake argument had the desired effect. "Okay, that's enough, both of you." He frowned at them. "Why aren't you at the festival with the others?"

"We're supposed to be running messages for the teachers," Lily told him.

"Or we would be, if _somebody_ knew where they were going," Snape said sharply.

"Hey, it was _you_ who said Professor Parilia was-"

"No, if you recall it was actually you that-"

"Okay, okay!" Malachite shouted them down again. He looked up at the sky with a long-suffering sigh. "What idiot decided to team you two up on this, hmm?"

"Professor Dumbledore," they answered in chorus.

Malachite laughed, and shook his head. "Oh, Albus. Ever optimistic, I see." He frowned. "Well, no wonder I haven't been getting any messages. Have you seen any of the other staff around here?"

"Not since Mrs. Potter here decided we should take a scenic detour," growled Snape.

"_Mrs. Potter_?" Lily yelped. The thump she gave him in the arm certainly wasn't faked.

"Oh, why can't the two of you just shut up and get married? Although I suppose that leads to the possibility you might reproduce, which is certainly something we want to avoid at all costs-"

She thumped him again, and Malachite looked like he honestly couldn't decide whether to be angry or amused. "Lily, I know this is a special day, but do you think you could see clear to keeping your fists to yourself?"

"Well, can you make him keep his _words_ to himself?"

"It's self defence!" he objected. "If I don't talk, you might never shut up! And then sooner or later I'd have to kill myself..."

"Okay, I have to say I'm not really seeing the downside here..."

"Will the two of you _please_ just-?" Malachite suddenly froze, and for a moment it looked as if he was about to spout prophecy like Professor Alomancia.

"Professor?" asked Snape, after a second.

Malachite blinked his sharp grey eyes and focused back on Snape. "Huh? Oh, yes." He reconfigured his face into a stern frown. "Both of you, stop bickering and attend to your duties. Severus, you should know better; don't let her goad you into retaliating. Now, if you'll both excuse me, I have some things to attend to." He marched off rapidly in the direction of the school.

"Okay, is it just me or was he doing the whole possessed thing just then?"

"I don't know about possessed," Sev said dryly, "but yes, something suddenly caught his attention."

"Let's find out what." They followed the route the professor had taken. It wasn't difficult; he was moving at quite a lick.

"I like how he managed to get in the one anti-Gryffindor line even while he was being dragged away by the vitally important thing that grabbed him," Lily observed as they trotted after him.

"You should be kinder to him; he's an oppressed minority."

"Really?"

"Yes. A Slytherin who doesn't like not being liked."

Lily suddenly stopped dead, feigning complete and utter shock. "Ye gods! A Slytherin with... actual human feelings?"

"Stop the presses," Sev agreed dryly. He looked at her. "Do you mind? We're actually in the middle of something here."

"Oh, can you stop it with the logic for just a couple of seconds? You're really no fun to have adventures with."

"Well, _that's_ something I'll certainly have to work on," he said sarcastically. Then it was his turn to stop abruptly as he noticed the flattened grass ahead of them.

"What?"

"Look at the ground."

Lily looked. "It's a dent." He rolled his eyes at her.

"It's a rut."

"Well, you say potato. There's a rut in the ground. So what?"

"I've seen marks like this before, out in the Forbidden Forest. But never this fresh before."

"So Hagrid's been rolling barrels of Butterbeer about. There _is_ such a thing as overthinking, you know?"

"You can never think too much," he refuted. "On the other hand, it's easy to talk too much. Do you think you could possibly be quiet?"

No doubt Lily would have argued, had she not acknowledged the wisdom of hiding their presence from Malachite. They broke from the cover of trees just in time to see the door ahead of them fall closed.

"He's gone back in the school," Lily observed.

Snape rolled his eyes at her. "Are they paying you to be the narrator?"

"They're not paying me for any of this, actually."

"You're free to leave. In fact, please do."

She gave him a look. "Oh no. You're not getting rid of me that easily. Besides-" she reached inside her robe and yanked out the wadded up invisibility cloak. "You need me."

"You always carry that around with you?" he asked her.

"Only when I think you're up to something."

"All the time, then?"

"Yeah, pretty much." She shook out the cloak and stretched it over both their heads. "Let's go see what he's up to."

Sev would never have chanced trying to observe the theft under normal circumstances, but the invisibility cloak changed matters. As did the presence of Lily. It was probably easier to go along with what she wanted to do than get caught short because the two of them were standing around arguing it over. And if they were by some chance spotted, it wouldn't be too hard to make it appear that Lily had suspected something and he had followed her to make sure she didn't witness anything.

It wasn't the world's easiest thing to move surreptitiously when there were two of them under the cloak. There was enough room for them, barely, but if they didn't coordinate their movements to some degree they were liable to lose their cover without warning. At least Lily was light-footed.

With the restrictions imposed by the cloak, it took longer than it should have done get to the tower and begin to ascend the stairs. Lily was obviously itching to charge on ahead, but Sev's more cautious pace ruled the day. The last thing they needed was for one of them to trip or mis-step and make a noise.

They were about halfway up as a sudden almighty crash sounded above. Lily jumped, causing the cloak to spill to the ground. Sev quickly snatched it up and looked at her. "Let me take this."

She looked like she was going to object, but there wasn't time for that. "Remember that spell I used in the first year? The one that made Fennel not see me when I was standing in the shadows?"

"Vaguely." She made a half-correct stab at the pronunciation, and he corrected her.

"Use that. Go down to the bottom of the stairs, and wait to see if anyone comes down. Go!" he ordered, when she still hesitated.

She looked annoyed, but pulled away and started to hop lightly back down the steps. Sev threw the cloak back over himself, and continued to ascend at a faster pace.

Even as he scurried up the stairs, his mind was working overtime, trying to analyse the source of the resounding crash that they'd heard. It had sounded like somebody crashing into a piece of furniture, hard. The sound of somebody trying to break down the door? But if so, it couldn't be the Death Eater. Or any of the other teachers, because they all had the code.

He couldn't even be fully sure it was Malachite who was up there. They'd followed him out of the woods, but they hadn't seen for certain it was him who'd entered the building. And even if it had been, he might have been going somewhere else...

Too many variables. There were too many variables, and he didn't like that at all. He slowed to a complete halt ten steps from the top, and listened intently for a moment. He heard another sound, a smaller thump, like something striking stone, and a strange kind of hissing.

What was going on up there?


	6. Chapter Six

Sev silently trod the last two steps, and with one last check that the cloak was covering him, peered around the doorway. What he saw, even he could probably have been forgiven for failing to predict.

The hooded figure directly across from him sparked immediate recognition; it was undoubtedly the same person he'd seen with Malfoy three years ago. That had been his only sure sighting of the hidden Death Eater, and he'd been sure to burn it into his memory. However, in an unpredictable turn of events, this sighting wasn't the most interesting thing in the room.

_That_ honour would almost certainly have to go to the enormous snake with which the Death Eater was tussling.

The snake was as thick around as a human torso, perhaps thicker, and at least twelve feet long. It was the shimmering blue white of solid ice, with a pattern of interlocking shield-shaped scales.

Well, Sev reflected, at least the origin of those mysterious ruts in the grass was explained. Such a creature might be able to move silently, but it certainly couldn't do it without leaving its mark.

Under ordinary conditions the enormous snake should have had no trouble coiling around and crushing its opponent, but the Death Eater was backed into a corner and it was too big to squeeze in and get at the hooded figure.

The snake, in a display of non-reptilian intelligence, seemed to realise that, and pulled back to hiss. Its fangs were as long as any of Sev's fingers, and they dripped venom.

For a moment, snake and Death Eater regarded each other. Or so it seemed, although Sev could see nothing of the face shadowed beneath the dark hood. Then, as one, both struck.

The snake's jaws snapped, but it was the Death Eater's hidden dagger that found its mark. The creature suddenly let out an incredible screech and reared backwards. The hooded figure deftly ducked away from it and sprinted out of the tower room, hammering down the stairs so quickly that it was pure luck the invisible Snape wasn't crashed into.

Sev saw the hilt of a dagger protruding from the snake's underbelly. It thrashed, trying to bite at the handle but unable to get a grip to tug it free.

Sev hesitated for a long moment. He had a hunch about this creature... but if he was wrong, and it was just a wild animal, approaching it could well be his last move.

Still, sometimes you had to just follow your instincts. Sometimes, all logic could tell you was that if you waited around to be one hundred percent sure, it would be too late to do anything.

In a decisive moment, Sev tugged off the invisibility cloak and stepped into the room. "Stop," he said, as commandingly as he was able.

The snake abruptly stopped thrashing. It slowly turned its head to regard him with grey, cold, unblinking eyes.

Had it been an animal, he could have said something like "Stay," but he didn't think it _was_ just that, and so he said nothing. Instead, he very slowly stepped towards the huge creature. It reared up to give him more room to get at the knife-handle.

Sev gave it a brief nod of acknowledgement, and grabbed the knife in both hands to yank it free. It took nearly all the effort his muscles could provide, and the snake let out another hissing shriek. Sev didn't panic or run back, understanding that it was only pain that made it screech.

The blade of the knife was dripping with a thick, dark substance that hissed against the metal. He placed it down on the floor in the corner, careful not to touch the blade.

Then he looked back up at the snake, which was watching him. "I know what you are," he said to it, looking it in the eye.

There was a sudden clatter of footsteps, and he looked around to see Lily come haring up the stairs. She skidded to an abrupt halt as she saw him and the snake. "Holy-"

She bit off whatever swear-word she might have been contemplating as Professor Dumbledore emerged from the stairwell behind her. Despite the fact that the headmaster was considerably more than seventeen years old himself, he didn't seem remotely out of breath.

"Professor," said Sev, with a nod.

"Severus," said Dumbledore, just as calmly. Lily gaped at the pair of them, and the headmaster's eyes twinkled mischievously. Sev decided it fell to him to address the fourth member of their little gathering.

"You may as well change back now, you know," he told the serpent.

Lily let out a little gasp of surprise as the blue-white snake abruptly melted into the form of a human man. He grunted and dropped to his knees, clutching at his side with a grimace of pain.

"Professor!" exclaimed Lily.

Malachite looked up at Snape. "Clever boy," he wheezed with difficulty.

"Naturally." Sev assisted Dumbledore as they both helped Malachite to his feet. The headmaster patted his shoulder with some concern.

"Carnus, are you hurt?" he asked worriedly.

The Defence Against the Dark Arts professor pulled aside his robes and lifted the undershirt to look at his wound. It made a jagged line against his deathly pale skin, but it had already stopped bleeding.

"It's almost healed," he said, dropping the shirt back down and dismissing it. "It takes more than a knife wound to kill one of my kind."

Lily had recovered a little, although her jaw was still dropped. "You're a Naga!" she realised.

"I'm that, yes," Malachite agreed, with a small smile. "Full marks on identification of magical creatures, there."

Sev nodded slowly, a lot of things abruptly clicking into place. He had known Malachite to be a Parselmouth, capable of talking in the snake tongue, but that was an ability that had long been intertwined with the more ancient bloodlines of house Slytherin. He had read of the Naga, but certainly hadn't had any reason to expect that he might meet one.

Ironically enough, it had been in the private library Malachite had granted him access to that he'd found the few details of the Naga people that were available. An ancient race of India, they were part-human, part-snake, and some of them had the ability to shift between the two forms. As soon as he had seen that over-large serpent fighting the Death Eater and acting with intelligence, the idea had clicked into place. The moment it had, Malachite had been the only possible suspect.

"Who stabbed you?" asked Lily warily, perhaps wondering if it had been Snape, and if so, whose side she ought to be on.

"Our very own hidden Death Eater, I should imagine," said Dumbledore quietly.

"Yes." Malachite looked frustrated. "I thought there might be an attempt to steal the glass whilst everyone was distracted, so I slipped away and put a ward on the tower door to alert me if anyone went up. I caught them in the act, but I was too late. They got the glass, and I didn't even see the person's face."

Dumbledore nodded, but didn't look too worried. "Calm yourself, Carnus, all is not lost. We were already resigned to losing that particular Foe-Glass, and it will avail our enemy little."

Malachite frowned in puzzlement for a moment, then realisation dawned. "It was bait?" he demanded.

Sev nodded. "I hope you realise you nearly ruined my plan," he admonished dryly.

"Your plan?" Malachite looked at him, and then laughed quietly. "Of course, I should have known you'd be up to your eyebrows in this." He turned back to Dumbledore. "Albus, you surely could have explained-" He broke off, and looked resigned. "You suspected me?" he surmised.

"I suspected everybody," said Snape dryly.

"He's like that," nodded Lily.

Malachite looked back at her. "And how did you come to be mixed up in this, young lady?"

"Wrong place, wrong time," she said, with a quick shrug. Malachite raised an eyebrow.

"By design, no doubt." He looked at Sev and Dumbledore. "So this was all a trap of yours? Well, I fear the mouse has sprung it, and escaped with the cheese." He nodded his head towards the open door.

"Not quite," Sev said enigmatically, and he moved to examine his magical lock. As he had suspected, the Death Eater had taken the time to scramble the positions after they'd opened it; well, he had his built in features to deal with that. He drew his wand. "_Recyclius!_"

"It's no good fiddling with that, Severus," Malachite told him, shaking his head. "They'll have used concealment magics to hide their identity, that's a given."

"I'm not looking for that," Sev said, not looking up from the little planets as they rotated through their 'orbits'.

Malachite frowned, and he and the others came closer to watch. "Then what are you doing?"

"Looking at the last code that was put in."

"But what good will that do you? You already know how to get in. And anyway," he gestured at the magical lock as all the pieces came to a stop, "that's not even the code!"

Sev looked up at him, and smiled thinly. "It's not the code I gave _you_," he corrected.

Malachite looked confused, and then surprised, and Lily began to grin. Dumbledore let out a hearty chuckle. "Our Severus is quite the schemer, Carnus. You should know that by now."

"I should, shouldn't I?" agreed Malachite wryly. "Very well, Severus - you've proved yourself a master tactician. If you gave everybody a _different_ code, then whose code was used?"

They all leaned closer, as Sev once again stared closely at the arrangement of the pieces. He had recognised the pattern as soon as it had first clicked into place, but it was in his nature to check, and check, and check again.

"Professor Vitae," he said abruptly, straightening up.

Lily stared at him, mouth agape. Dumbledore let out a melancholy sigh, looking up at the ceiling, and Malachite began to slowly nod.

"Ah, Ellida," said Dumbledore, sadly shaking his head. "I had hoped I was wrong about her."

"What? No, that can't be-" Lily looked from him to Snape in disbelief. "But she's a-"

"Gryffindor?" Malachite laughed, a sound without much humour. "Ah yes. Who would suspect the mighty Gryffindors, when we, the Slytherins, the _snakes_, are here to embody all that is wrong with the universe?" There was a bitter twist in his accent on 'snakes', and now they all knew why.

"No, but she, I mean-" Lily shook her head. "She's a _Death Eater_...?"

"I know it seems hard to believe," said Dumbledore. "I've had my suspicions for some years now, but I had been praying I was wrong. She was always such a bright child..."

"Not to mention a vicious, spiteful one," said Malachite darkly. "Oh, she hid it well, but I always knew there was a dark side to Ellida Vitae." He shook his head slowly. "Still, even so... I'm not sure I would have believed this of her." He laughed shakily. "I must admit, I had my eye on poor Trigo."

"Professor Fractalis?" Lily said disbelievingly. The Arithmancy professor was well-known for his timidity.

"I know, I know," he admitted. "But he's been acting so strangely lately-"

Lily giggled.

Malachite frowned. "What?"

She looked at him, and then across at Snape, and then she started to laugh. "Honestly, you people - you're supposed to be the smart ones here! Of course he's acting strangely. _He's got a girlfriend_!"

"Janeida?" Malachite seemed totally taken aback. "Surely not?"

"Yeah!" said Lily pointedly. "It's _obvious_."

"Not quite so obvious as certain people who insist on shouting about how certain other people are _not_ their boyfriend," interjected Sev acidly.

"Oh, give it a rest, greaseball," Lily said, rolling her eyes. "Anybody would think you wanted him for yourself, the way you go on about it all the time."

"I think I can find it within myself to resist his manly charms," said Sev dryly.

Malachite was listening to the two of them bicker with a slightly lost look on his face. "You two... know each other?" he asked carefully.

"Oh yeah. We're old friends," said Lily breezily.

"Let's not exaggerate," said Snape.

"We solve mysteries together," Lily elaborated, sticking her tongue out at him.

"I solve. She follows me around and makes smart remarks."

"At least they're smart," she shrugged.

"Smarter than the average Gryffindor," he said, shrugging back. "That's not difficult."

Lily shook her head again. "Professor Vitae? Really? She was always so nice..."

"She seemed nice," Sev corrected. "But she also tried to poison you, if you recall."

"That was her?" said Lily, rubbing her head as if she was getting a headache.

"Well, she was the one who had hold of the Gryffindor badges before they were given to you. And she told you to keep it on after you'd noticed there was something wrong with it."

"No doubt she managed to slide the blame on that one over to me," observed Malachite dryly.

"Well, yeah. But that's because you're a Slytherin," Lily objected.

Malachite laughed shortly. "Not quite. Mostly, it's because I'm me." He sighed. "You see, Ellida was once a typical Gryffindor, much like yourself. We were both in the tops of our houses, and fighting it out for pole position within our year.

"Ellida always used to push herself too far to try and be the best. One year, there was a terrible accident, and she nearly died when a potion went horribly wrong. I was able to save her life because in my snake form, I was safe from the poisonous fumes."

"But if you saved her life, then-"

"Alas," Dumbledore took up the story, "poor Ellida would never accept that she'd made a mistake with the potion. She continued to insist that there had been sabotage, that Carnus had been coming in to kill her, not to save her. She blamed all of her teachers, too, for refusing to believe her version of events." He shook his head. "We worried for her, but when she returned to the school the following year, all seemed well again, and we thought she had got over the trauma of the incident. It appears we were wrong."

"Clearly, she never gave up looking for revenge," Malachite nodded. "The Death Eaters must have seemed the perfect way for her to achieve it. It's easy to join someone else's campaign of hatred when that's all you can feel yourself. Her new friends have no doubt promised her the chance to take her revenge on me and all her other enemies, in return for her aid." Oddly, he didn't sound all that threatened by the prospect.

"So what do we do now?" asked Lily, exhaling heavily.

"Nothing," said Sev. They all looked at him. "I engineered this theft for them. If we move against her now, I'll be the biggest suspect. We can't do anything yet."

Dumbledore looked grave. "Much as it pains me to continue to harbour an enemy within these walls, I fear the deception is necessary. Severus is our closest link to the inner circles of the Death Eaters, and we need to protect him if we are to have a chance."

"But what about Professor Vitae?" Lily wanted to know. "We can't just- we can't just let her get away with it!"

"We won't," said Sev quietly. "But it's all about the timing. It only takes one mis-step for us to lose it all."

There was a long silence, and the Dumbledore clapped his hands. "And now," he announced, "we must return to the festival. Secrets may keep, but impatient students won't, and soon we will be missed."

The four of them descended from the tower, and went their separate ways.

* * *

Professor Malachite cornered Sev one last time before the Hogwarts Express came to take them all home. "This is a dangerous game you're playing, Severus," he warned.

"I'm not playing," Sev reminded him.

"No, you're not," the teacher agreed. "And neither are they. Lily's right, you know. We're asking for trouble keeping a spy this close to us."

"But now we know she's a spy," Sev pointed out. "And that puts us ahead of the game."

"Maybe." Malachite frowned reflectively. "But I can feel things coming to a head. You and your Death Eater companions will be graduating next year, and somehow I doubt you'll be going out quietly..."

"I'll handle it," said Sev. "I always do."

"I hope you know what you're doing," said Malachite quietly. "I just hope you know what you're doing."

Then the last call for the train came again, and Severus headed for the platform to leave Hogwarts for the second to last time. He left Professor Malachite behind on the platform, looking troubled.

**End**


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